Twitter is gearing up to open its first Research and Development (R&D) unit in India, as per the latest news The Financial Times. The microblogging site will open this facility in Bangalore, the silicon valley of India.
The news comes just weeks after Twitter made its first acquisition in the country by scooping up mobile marketing start-up ZipDial. The startup’s user experience “combines SMS, voice, mobile Web, and access to mobile apps to bridge users from offline to online.
The R&D facility will be the first one for Twitter outside India. As per the FT report, Twitter will use the ZipDial team in this utility center to develop new products. It also added that a latest eMarketer report stated that India will become Twitter’s largest market after the US by 2018 with a projected 40m users, up from present 17m.
Twitter is the second company outside India that is preparing to launch a R&D unit in India. Last week, a PTI report said that Xiaomi will also set up its first unit in also Bangalore, India to focus on localising its products and features for the Indian market through the unit.